How to Address Storefront Maintenance and Cleaning as a Manager
Step 1: Daily Cleaning
Start by forming a list, you’re in your storefront every day, so you know best what is dirty by the end of the day every day and what can maybe wait till the end of the week. In the same breath, you also know your staff’s capability and time availability, leave off larger jobs which should be tackled by the pros due to either time constraints or the requirement of a specialty skill-set, or dangerous chemicals and equipment.
Laminate this list, have a daily column and a weekly column, then give yourself a column for the time last performed and who did it for accountability. Since its laminated, any good dry erase marker in a bright colour should help you and your staff at a glance see whats up next on this list.
Some examples of things we would say are daily tasks, and our daily janitorial contracts always include are vacuum clean all floors, mop all floors with a biodegradable enzyme cleaner if you have hard surfaces like vinyl or tile, wipe down all door handles and other high touch surfaces with sanitizer (being sure to follow the sanitizing directions, keep in mind most spray sanitizers require a 5 minute wet soak time to actually work) sanitize all employee and customer bathrooms (little squeamish? look at our article or around the web about how to make touch-less bathroom cleaning work for you and your staff) take out all garabages and replace with fresh liners, check all paper towel and toilet paper dispensers and replace with new rolls if needed, wipe down all tables and counters if applicable, and do a visual inspection for anything else which looks out of place. This list obviously grows if you have food prep / service areas in your business.
Suggested chemicals: Stain-Proof Daily Floor Cleaning Concentrate (Available at StoneSealer.ca for those of you in Canada), Diversy Oxivir TB (Available through Bunzl in Canada in bulk, or available on amazon: Diversy Oxivir on Amazon ) Windex or another concentrated window cleaner, and a bowl cleaner of your choice for the bathrooms.
Step 2: Weekly / Monthly Cleaning:
Following our list above, some more things should be done weekly or monthly depending on demand and traffic, to keep your storefront as sparkling and fresh as possible conveying a superior and professional appearance to your prospective customers. These will include: Cleaning and deoderizing of drains around the facility, washing out garbage bins, performing a strip mop or having a professional company like Craig and Company Maintenance Contractors in Vancouver coming in and performing a ” Deep Cleaning Extraction” which uses hot water, suction, and specialty chemicals to bring your floor back to a factory new state that mopping just cant provide. If your storefront features any carpet, you should also consider having a professional company come through and provide you with a VLM (very low moisture) carpet cleaning procedure which uses a specialty chemical to lift and encapsulate the dirt that vacuuming cant provide, without the long drawn out dry time that traditional carpet cleaning requires. You should also during this periodic deeper clean wash all your storefront glass, this can either be done by a diligent staffer or you might consider calling a pro to make quick work and have a sparkling clean guarantee. Clean out any fridges and microwaves for staff or customer use, as well as you should descale the coffee machine, nobody likes a bad cup and some simple white distilled vinegar will do the job. Many high touch / traffic locations will also use this moment to have a leave on sanitizer sprayed throughout the storefront and offices, however this task is best left for the professionals.
Step 3: Know When to Call a Pro
Most daily tasks can be performed by your staff, but sometimes your day is just too busy; or every day is just too busy, and rather than have staff stop doing profitable things for the company you should consider hiring a daily janitorial service and let your staff keep doing what they’re good at. Deep cleaning can be done by your staff, but if they are already having a hard time keeping up with the timing or quality standards of daily maintenance cleaning you should probably think about having a maintenance company on contract to come in set intervals to give your storefront the proper refresh clean that it needs. If you have any type of hood vents, stove systems, garbage disposals, or specialty sanitization requirements like in a gym or medical facility we highly recommend you call a professional that has the training, chemicals, and insurance to make sure these are handled correctly; saving a few dollars up front is never worth losing thousands in a liable suit down the road, or being denied insurance because a pro should have done the job. The other benefit for managers to use a maintenance company like Craig and Company Contracting in Vancouver to do their maintenance and deep cleaning, is every time one of their technicians comes to do a treatment they give your storefront a full inspection for maintenance items , saving you time and money, and the embarrassment of a customer coming to inform you of something being broken like a bathroom door lock for their privacy.
Daily Cleaning Tips From a Pro:
Do things right, an extra 20 minutes on maintenance cleaning daily can save you from needing a weekly deep cleaning to a monthly deep cleaning.
tip 1: Mopping. After you do your soapy water mop using the directed amount of cleaner in HOT water around your commercial storefront, go drain the water and wash your mop out, then refill with clean HOT water and go do a rinse pass. The reason you should do a rinse pass is because with 1 step wet mopping, you leave soap residue on the floor, soap is good at picking up dirt that’s why we use it, but if you leave soap on the floor you’re just attracting dirt from peoples shoes and the air and this residue gives it something to hold on to, boom your floor is dirtier faster.
Also, if your soapy or rinse water for mopping becomes brown / black and completely opaque (not see through) don’t be lazy, go change it out and make a fresh bucket, you’re not cleaning a darn thing with that, only moving dirt around to hang out in different places than it was before.
Tip 2: Windows. Always clean windows when they’re in the shade, even a quality “no streak” brand name glass cleaner like Windex will leave a hazy film if you try and use it while there’s sun on that pane, its just how it goes.
Tip 3: Drains. Regular cleaning and deoderizing of drains in both bathrooms and other areas of your storefront are likely to save you a headache that requires a plumber down the road, using a scoop of a powdered concentrated alkaline cleaner like Stain-Proof Alkaline Cleaner available at StoneSealer.ca will keep your drains clearer, cleaner, and smelling fresh.
Tip 4: Sanitizer. Always go quat, don’t ever mix with other chemicals, and skip the bleach it’s more risk than reward, there’s a ton of great Quaternary ammonium sanitizers on the market today. Always give sanitizer its recommended dwell time, if the label says spray then let sit for 5 minutes, set a timer, don’t wipe it up till those full 5 minutes has passed or you’re just wiping up costly chemicals that haven’t done their job yet.
Tip 5: Know your skill-sets. Hate cleaning bathrooms? Always have to fight with your staff to get it done? If its always a fight, its also usually done to the bare minimum standard, fair to say. For a few extra dollars, have that employee go do something that makes you money and hire a professional custodian to come do those tasks, its their career and they’ll do a better job than someone (including you) who just really does not want to clean it up. If hygiene slips, customers stop coming, bad reviews pile up, and it all could have been avoided by sticking to your specific skill set. Sometimes you get a staffer whos happy to clean and has time to do it on top of their tasks, other times you’re trying to commit a balancing act which could have been easily carried in another cart.